The Likes of Us

Finishing 2 bedrooms in Basement

April 25th, 2014

Framing for all the rooms has been done for quite some time but now we have started the completion process of at least 2 rooms. Electrical has been run to the 2 bedrooms, including outlets and lighting in the closets.

Insulation needed to go up on the exterior walls yet. This will help the overall temperature of the entire house. Yay!

Bedroom to the right will be a guest room within a few weeks and room to the left will remain a storage room for now.

Put tub and shower fixtures in and have running water to the tub/shower combo.

Also, setup the in-floor heat and have that running on electricity to curb the massive propane prices. The Basement is now much warmer and a more comfortable place to be.

The upstairs guest bedroom will be moving downstairs once sheetrock, mud, tape and finally painting is done. We are skipping the flooring for now due to time constraints.

The upstairs guest bedroom will then be converted to a Nursery for the lil one on the way in approx. 3 weeks.

Sheetrock is going up this weekend. We will try to keep everyone posted to our progress as time allows. I can't wait to post pics of the finished Nursery upstairs.

Building walls in the basement

Dec 5th, 2012

Well its hard to see by the pictures but we are very close to finishing all the framing in the basement!

We now have framing up for 2 bedrooms or offices and each room has a closet in it.

Before you know it, we will be on to electrical then sheetrock.

The bottom picture is of the now hallway leading to both bedrooms on left and to the right is 3 doors. one to utility room, one to the bathroom and another to an office.

Basement bathroom - tub install

Feb 6th thru Feb 10th

Every night this week, work was done in the basement. The most time consuming was preparing the drain from the bathtub. After many trips to Home Depot, we were finally able to set the tub in place...permanently. With everything measured out and marked perfectly, we slopped down some ready mix cement and slowly set the tub in its place.

The wall between the bathroom and the office was next to go up. The room with the pipe sticking out of it, is the office.

....yes it should be on the bathroom side of the wall...don't ask.

We now have 3 fully framed rooms.

The utility room, bathroom and office.

Were back...January 2012

This winter we started framing the basement. We were able to get a few walls built using the remaining wood leftover from the original building process.

We then ran out of lumber and had to haul the trailer into Home Depot.

The wood was hauled in from the trailer
thru the patio doors to the kitchen floor,
then hauled down the steps to a pile in the basement.

The trip to town included picking up the shower/tub for the basement bathroom.

In this picture, you can see the entire west wall has now been built.

Next was a couple of mini walls to frame in the utility room and define the north wall of the bathroom.

Long overdue updates 2010-2011 Summer

Since moving into our house, we have been working on the yard, landscaping etc. at our own pace.

Over the course of the past 2 summers, we have managed to plant approx. 300 trees and bushes. We started digging each hole with shovels and by the time we had 100 trees left to do, we broke down and purchased a hole digger to attach to the tractor. Phew!

Watering the trees has become a huge part of our daily lives during the summer. The trees when first planted are only about 12-24 inches high and needs lots of water. This past summer has been one of the dryest summers in years. Just our luck!

We dug out all the mud around the basement windows and installed window well structures. Landscaped around the entire area with river rock and plastic edging.
Now the rain can run off the roof all it wants without washing away our landscaping.

Came across a wonderful deal for the river rock. Free... if we came and dug it up from someone else's landscaping and shoveled into our trailer. No, we didn't steal it...we knew somebody who was re-doing there landscaping and wanted to get rid of it. LOTS of work but a great deal!!

Do it ourself or hire somebody...You guessed it!
We did it ourself. This past Fall (2011) we prepped the walkway and poured cement for our front sidewalk.

Had truckloads of sand hauled in, rented lots of equipment from a rental company in town

.....

and stayed up all night prepping for the concrete delivery.

I think we got 2 hours of sleep that night...I mean morning. =)

To say this was a huge undertaking, would be a major understatement.

After spending 16 months building an entire house, having a time restraint to finish, battling weather and overcoming fear of heights to name just a few.....how does pouring a concrete sidewalk rate as the hardest and most nerve wracking projects?!

The end result...It looks great!

No more walking
on old sheathing boards to come visit us.

Steps on the front...steps on the side

A Few Final Touches

Installed black top-down,bottom-up blinds in the Master Bedroom

Added black crown moulding to the kitchen cabinets

along with satin nickel drawer pulls.

We put up closet organizers and shelving in the walk-in closet.

Moved in a bed, some clothes and other necessary items so we can live in the house while we finish up with the detail work.

We are also working on bathroom cabinets and drawer pulls and hope to have an "Official" move-in date in the next few weeks.